Naruto Fan Fiction ❯ Devil In the Moonlight ❯ Chapter 1

[ X - Adult: No readers under 18. Contains Graphic Adult Themes/Extreme violence. ]

Disclaimer: Nope, sorry don’t own the anime series Naruto, the manga or even any of the dead sexy characters. Well.. now that sucks.


The night air was bittersweet, it clung somewhere between the last dredges of summer and the blossoming of autumn. Everywhere the once crisp green of a new seasons growth was curdling and spiraling in on itself, turning a bronzed face towards the sun in defiance of the chill and monochromatic nature of a white and snowy winter. The evening still held that last breath of warmth, smelling so enticingly of long forgotten perfumes and wilting cherry blossoms as the soft pink petals blew through the breezes carried along the streets of Konoha.

And the young girl with hair the color of those very blossoms found her body and mind restless as the shifting trees. The whisperings of those dying leaves tickling at her senses, vaguely brooking through her mind and driving her out of the security and warmth of a welcoming bed. Too many thoughts, too many demons snaking under her skin and clawing through her eyes and into the back of her head where her most private torments, heavy and bloated on her anger and grief, contentedly slumbered.

The lateness of the hour had no consequences, no afterthoughts of danger waiting in the lurking and growing shadows of buildings where devoted family lay in rest, comforted in the company of familial alliances. And above it all smiled down the moon, only a sliver of silver against the velvet backdrop of sky and twinkling stars. It mocked her, smiling luminescently, bright and shining, giving it’s sagely light to all those that would but turn their face up in offering to it’s beams. But it couldn’t pierce her heart, couldn’t spill into the inky cracks, every so slowly widening with each emotional storm, Sasuke’s rejection had speared into the still bleeding object in her breast.

Let it try. It’ll be devoured down just the same, she cast her thoughts with bitter resignation back up at the moon, even daring it to so much as try to cast it’s sparse light to the far reaches of those creeping spaces in which another part of her was wilting with neglect, vainly reaching a trembling hand out towards the retreating echoes of steps across a desolate road. Sasuke, her desperate moans fell on indifferent ears, just a minute piece of sound in the flurry of fate, drowning down and smothered under the boot and weight of a path she could not hope to tread.

No one can hear you anymore, no one cares anymore, that tiny little voice had grown into something large, lumbering with distinctive mass and voracious hungers that feed at the slow dripping and leeching away of whatever was left behind in it‘s wake. Something seeping and slithering with icy tendrils through the recesses and chinks in her mental armor. Something she couldn’t beat down and cover with her genteel mask. No silly smile in the world was enough to swallow it down, make it less and so much more that insignificant spark of doubt and self loathing. Not even Naruto’s.

Where you going to go, lost flower... so lost... so lost... so lost.. soo.... lost, insatiable beast, maddening, fevered, simple minded, it plagued her, stood resolute in the shadow of her body casting bloodied stones at her frail and fragile shields, venom dripping from a haggard mouth riddled with razor bladed teeth that could cut and tear and rip. Oh yes, tear, rip.... bleed for me little lost flower.

It was getting so heavy, so very heavy to carry the burden and she no longer remember which voice was which. Which impish facade spoke of her own trepidation and which was the nagging remembrance of him. Your still annoying, and just like that, it was clear cut as diamond, no sparkle left to the faceted surface, allowed one too many times to tumble and rush and flow with the violent streams of a dark and lonely river winding through a land it no longer recognized and towards a wavering illusion of sunset and crimson sky weeping ichor tears.

She hadn’t realized the kunai was even within her grasp, the cold press of metal digging into a quivering hand and across its blade dancing with merriment the free flowing expression of a release. She’d felt no pain, no sensation, hadn’t even been aware of the bite of blade and the parting of flesh before its will. It flashed and fuzzed around the edges, gliding sensual and lazy, falling and falling, and a ripple like water across a still surface onto the ground. A lone testament to her passing, a fleeting reminder that she still had blood to shed, still had blood to give in the cause of her quickly eroding dreams.

She was of course, deluding herself; she had no dreams left to her. She’d long ago abandoned them, dropped carelessly along the transverse that lead between the good of what once was and the bleary reality of what is. It’d taken a direct and brutal slap to the face to make her eyes truly see, for the rosy hue to fall away into the dust, shattered and pined after. And once clear, she’d not likely the dreary and gloomy reality that hovered before her face. A canvas of deepening shades, fading and ruined. It curled at the edges, pulled loose and draping like some sadly forgotten rag doll. It streaked and oozed in bleak stripes across what was once a pristine and peaceful scene. The nativity of youth had blinded her, had lead her to believe all was pure and virtuous and she’d been more than willing to let it keep it’s hold over her.

How often now the compulsion to sink her fingers in knuckle deep into the hollow sockets of her eyes wormed its way into her gut and her conscious thoughts. Would it be a sickening wet sound or a sharp pop as the orbs ruptured, she’d morbidly inquired to no one at all. Her mind was set on the macabre; there was no getting around it. Like she really cared, her body was so much useless flesh, her mind little better than fragments memories woven in a tapestry of lies and self asserted false truths. But she was all too well reminded that not even that would bring her comfort, would shield her away from the growing darkness. Because in the end, it would only deepen the shades that crept across the floor seeking for her warm, for her living flesh, thrusting talons still further into her wounds.

That would have completed the cycle of self abuse and disuse. Blinded, heartsick, useless, just another burden in the weak guise of a human girl. No, nothing to see here, keep walking, look see Sakura smile... look see Sakura walk away still happy and light and free.

She was of course, deluding herself; she had no dreams left to her. She’d long ago abandoned them, dropped carelessly along the transverse that lead between the good of what once was and the bleary reality of what is. It’d taken a direct and brutal slap to the face to make her eyes truly see, for the rosy hue to fall away into the dust, shattered and pined after. And once clear, she’d not liked the dreary and gloomy reality that hovered before her face. A canvas of deepening shades, fading and ruined. It curled at the edges, pulled loose and draping like some sadly forgotten rag doll. It streaked and oozed in bleak stripes across what was once a pristine and opulent scene. The nativity of youth had blinded her, had lead her to believe all was pure and virtuous and she’d been more than willing to let it keep it’s hold over her.

How often now the compulsion to sink her fingers in knuckle deep into the hollow sockets of her eyes wormed it’s way into her gut and her conscious thoughts. -Would it be a sickening wet sound, or a sharp pop as the orbs ruptured-, she’d morbidly inquired to no one at all. Her mind was set on the macabre; there was no getting around it. Like she really cared, her body was so much useless flesh, her mind little better than fragmented memories woven in a tapestry of lies and self asserted false truths. But she was all too well reminded that not even that would bring her comfort, would shield her away from the growing darkness. Because in the end, it would only deepen the shades that crept across the floor seeking for her warmth, for her living flesh, thrusting talons still further into her screaming wounds.

That would have completed the cycle of her miserable and unimportant life. Blinded, heartsick, useless, just another burden in the weak guise of a human girl. That could even define her any longer, she was no more a girl than she was a woman, straddled between the fine line of innocence and the maturity of womanhood. -No, nothing to see here, keep walking, look see Sakura smile... look see Sakura still happy and light and free.- But she wasn't free and she wasn't happy or light or even anything remotely among the living. She was a walking corpse, rotted and reeking, the flesh still moved unwilling to believe the spirit had already fled. That the heart was no longer content to beat no longer wished to be anything so frail and attached to the mortal failings of the human condition. -Why don't they see? Why don't they save me from myself?-

And in the rush of her flight she took pause, her awareness blurred and lay smoky and illusive, but it was there pondering at the wet trail dotted here and there across a tree branch, little pools of her vitality clinging remotely to a railing, a roof tile. Turning empty jade eyes down, it dawned on her, she was bleeding. -Wasn't she?- Her brain had failed to remember, was inapt at sending the proper impulses along her nerves and registering the sensations of pain that should have been twitching in the palm of her hand. As if to not see it, made it less real, something nonexistence. -Pain? What pain, I don't see anything.... oh wait there it is.- The moment her eyes rested across it, that reticent pain shot through her hand, pulling the muscles involuntarily taut, the fingers spasming around a shallow and puckered tear slowly weeping. It drew a ragged gasp from thin and colorless lips, a haggard breath pulled from lungs that worked of their own accord.

It was funny how such a small and insignificant thing could kill her if even the tiniest germ were to invade her body. Running rampant with disease through her system, ravaging her body with malevolent intent. How much funnier still that it should end like that, a tiny death, a tiny floundering mistake of carelessness and neglected injury. Not when even the larger abscess was festering within her, oozing and pus ridden and begging with a withered and raspy voice to allow her to lay down in the dust and the dirt and close her eyes forever. Perhaps then in the reveries of mist and cold earth, could she know the peace one was expected to want?

She was nothing, meaningless and without purpose, wandering aimlessly through the witching hour of night and the scents of a season in decay. A slip of mortality, of flesh and tears and so much distress, of never-ending pain and suffering for which there was no cure. How cruel now the universe seemed, it's desires that all things should have a place and a purpose, even if it was only a fleeting breath stolen between one moment and the next and then faded to nothing more than so much carrion. How many had they come across so pitilessly looking for the same drive? How many had she seen just give themselves over to the cruel embraces of blade and remorseful demise, when the reasoning of their beings lay staring blankly up at an uncaring sky, devoid of emotion of care and in a mockery at the threads that had bound them to their fates.

-Slip for me, little flower. Fall down and down... fall into my mouth- she could feel the beasts breaths curling and scalding the back of her neck, or maybe that was just the wind as her foot no longer held purchase beneath her. How careless, how foolish a misstep, blundering head long into a plummet because she had been so determined to not see where she was going. To let her feet carry her, to let the muscles strain and give and propel her onwards and onwards, she didn't care where. The ground was quick to rush up to welcome her free floating form. -So light...- But oblivion was not so easy to call her into it's arms, impulses fired, speed her threshing heart into action. -Into the feet, concentrate the chakra into the feet-

Once again she'd been saved by the reactions of her training, the thoughtless impulses of body over mind. An extension of her energy, her chakra flaring, burning lucid, opaque and unbound through those invisible lines that ran through her system, circulating like her blood and flowing into her feet just in the nick of time to adhere to a branch. -Damn you.... damn you all,- her curses could have fallen away from her lips, like so much dribble but her tongue refused to function past the swollen and bloated thing sticking to the roof of a dry and inable mouth. She was one of drought, so brittle and lacking, it hadn't been long since her last tear but her reserves were empty, barren and desolate like the desert sands shifting on uncertain torrid drafts.

Besides there were voices enough wailing there laments, there urgent attentions in the shell of her ear, burrowing through her skull and nestling like wriggling maggots in the niches of her head. She could feel, touch, taste, see, and so much more than she'd ever even wanted to imagine of them all swimming behind her vision, shuffling just beneath the timbre of her ear drums, thrumming through the beats of her heart overshadowing even the mundane descant of white noise conversation. -You can't cut us out... you can't NOT hear us-

And thus the silence that wasn't silence at all lay pregnant before her, eliciting no greater a reaction than the slow languid fall of dark lashes over indolent eyes and resting in semblance of contemptible repose on smooth fair cheeks. -Slowly in... Slowly out...- her breaths took flight, succumbing to that terribly awful dependence on oxygen. -Why do the dead need air? Surely we don't really truly need THAT-

Her vision swam, blurred and unfocused around the edges, giving the whole of everything around her an enervated texture. Everyday objects moving in leisurely fashion, a drudgery at realism, bringing an arid laugh, a diminutive bubble of vibrations from parched and cracked lips. She was slightly giddy, but it was a humorless mirth, something silly and trivial and immature. -Stupid little girl, what do you really think your laughing at?- Or maybe it was the blood rushing to her head in her current position, dangling upside down as if that had not been an unnatural position, her feet securely set against the wood as if she were standing upright.

-Myself-, she could finally confined within herself, her sudden voice faded back into the stillness of nothing, her lips falling in tight lines, neither consisting of a frown nor a smile nor anything remotely resembling an emotion other than a blank and unfinished mask. -See Sakura…. See Sakura giggling like an incompetent school girl- She felt vaguely neon, like a gaudy sign post screaming it’s advertisements in flashing colors, gruesome hideously pink text blatantly ignored by casual passer-byers. -We’ve seen this show honey, show us something new.-